On May 5 the Saunterers trekked to Fern Lake. I turned the wrong way in Glen Ellen and nearly missed them. The Bennett Valley route takes less of a toll on my electric-miles, maybe because there are so many hills to coast down and replenish my range. Holt Road is in the Developmental Center.

I caught up to them and wound up at the front of the group because everyone else stepped back. The high grass is a likely source of ticks and my hiking buddies did not want to become their new home. Photo by Bob Martin.

This is how it looked to me from the front of the pack. It is a beautiful spot.

Ham and Ticks

We came to a crossroad with a marker that said “Carolyn Day.” Hiker Carolyn said she already had her picture taken with the marker, so I asked Bob to take mine. I gave him the full beam smile and when he showed me the shot on his phone, I said, “We should call this ‘Ham and Ticks.'” I got a laugh.

Afterwards we went to the Glen Ellen market for lunch and had a vigorous discussion about how RBG’s failure to retire while Obama was in office may have contributed to the impending repeal of Roe v. Wade. We talked about the collapse of the Southern District of New York’s case against Trump. Jill, from Long Island, pointed out that money and political clout might have been a factor in the collapse. We discussed packing the court vs. granting statehood to Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. We talked about mental health in the context of the shocking suicide of Naomi Judd just before she was voted into the Hall of Fame. It is nice to have adults to chat with.

Here’s a photo of my effort to sprout some seeds for my garden. This year, at Joyce’s suggestion, I bought some Miracle Gro Seed Starting Potting Mix. Using scissors, I poked holes in the bottom of each egg crate cup, then filled with soil and added seeds I had soaked for a few days. Some seeds were saved from food: pasilla peppers and spaghetti squash. Some were purchased last year: leeks and kale.

Seed Starting Mix in the Egg Crates

Update May 6

The kale seeds have sprouted! I feel like a new mother.

Dianne led a trip to the Feminist Art Show in Santa Rosa, which I had already seen, so I joined her, Nan, Connie, and Ellen for lunch at the Bird and Bottle restaurant. Great fun as we shared the dishes, as the menu is designed.

Peggy sent us some old photos and this was the email chat on Easter morning.

This was taken around 1973 at a pig farm Dad rented for a month in Normandy (or Brittany), France.

Greg Chris MR Dave Dad

The pigs there were HUGE — like the size of cows.

The liner we had taken across the Atlantic dropped us at Cherbourg, France, and Helene’s sister Noelle was working nearby at a funny farm (she was doing her physician’s internship at a local hospital). Helene was staying somewhere close by and would visit Dad daily.

We would play bocci ball in the evenings and, when Helene wasn’t looking, Davy would drive her little deux chevaux around the yard. The stick shift came out of the dashboard.

Helene’s Deux Chevaux

The daffodil photo was taken at Trent Park, London, where Dad was working (before Chris worked there years later) during Dad’s and Gill’s honeymoon when Peggy was babysitting. MR said, “I think Christy is wearing a headband knitted by Timmy. (No, seriously, Timmy used to knit with multi-colored yarn.) And we were laughing because Chris was talking into the daffodil as if it were an old telephone.

Chris Talking Into Daffodil Phone

“We went to the zoo and were kicked out of the monkey exhibit because a monkey was jerking off,” Peg chimed in. “We all crammed into a tiny car and drove to Stonehenge.”

Franky Sandra Greg MR Jeremy

The hottie with his arm around me? Mmm mm! Jeremy Ironside, New Zealand hottie who I met him on the ship. Called him up. He lived in South London, so took the tube up to visit while Peg & Billy Hutch were babysitting.
Jaysus — how many did we have in that green Renault 16?
Five in back + Peg & Bill Hutch in front. The steering wheel was on the English side, so that must be Peg’s long hair on Jeremy, because I remember Hutch was driving.

The girl to Greg’s right? Sandra Young. Last week she What’sApp’d about Tea for the Tillerman, a Cat Stevens album we used to listen to at that time 🎵”I’m being followed by a moon shadow” 🎶

Greg Frank MR Dave Chris Gill Dad in the Fall, 1976

Franky said, “The photo with Chris in the Navy uniform was taken in Shirlington, VA where we briefly lived [when we returned from France]. I was a senior at Bishop Ireton boys school and worked stock at Sloan’s Furniture. Later Dad and Gill moved again and I was housed by the Richardson family around the corner until I finished high school and went to Radford U.”

MR chimed in, “I was going to Northern Virginia Community College at that time.” [If Franky was a senior at Ireton, Greg must have been a junior.] “Greg was going to O’Connell, but Dad shipped him off to Connie & Dave’s [in Bellingham, Washington]. Around the same time, he put me on a Greyhound Bus (with rotten chicken he had cooked) to Peg’s in San Rafael.

“Dave, I believe, was the maintenance guy at the apartments in S. Arlington. Gill worked at the jewelry counter at Woodward & Lothrup. Dad discovered Sizzler Steakhouse, so put on all the lbs. he had lost in France.”

Chris said, “I was in D.C. for two weeks the end of September/October time 1976.”